Freegle Tech Report 14-4-30

 Freegle Tech Report April 2014
Posts 13345-13491
Members 92
If you are interested in participating then you are welcome to join us, even if you only want to dip in and out. Mods are wanted who are willing to try out new stuff, test any tweaks done, or just comment - please come along.

General

We have still not found enough manpower time to finish changing over the servers.
Our direct server did go down for a while just over a week ago but was quickly sorted by Edward..
Yahoo also seemed to have a couple of days where posts took up to a day to arrive.

Spammers & Scammers .

They were causing even more trouble at the beginning of the month, the main culprit having written a program to enable it to join Direct quickly and easily. Edward has spent a lot of his time trying to find ways to combat the spammers before they join too many groups. This may result in the odd innocent person being unable to join us, but it is succeeding in preventing innocent members from being scammed. Direct now removes many at source and bans and removes others quickly from groups..
If you use modtools, you now have a choice of asking the app to preban a whole host of email addresses which have been reported as spammers in the past. They are checked and verified before going on the list, or are coming from known fraudulent sources.
We asked for volunteers to review them and several mods have offered.

ILoveFreegle Main Pages

A group was concerned that the search on a nearby group was not showing their groups. Their groups locality field was amended so that it now does so. If your groups does not choose the correct groups when popping in your location, then send an email to support @ ilovefreegle.org

Events.

Some events still went out to members after the date of the event for a week or so because of a sync breakdown.
Reports on some groups, were out by an hour because of BST but were affected much less than last time the clocks were changed..
A member complained that their event had been sent out with a date she did not hold it. Investigation revealed that she had asked for it to be repeated weekly. Be aware that the app will update the date when you do this, if an event is monthly or fortnightly then you have to use those options..

Facebook, Snaply, Twitter & Direct.

We still have  100 groups failing to use any of these available tools for their group.
If you are at all interested in updating your group to allow those who don’t have computers, or aren’t willing to jump through all the Yahoo hoops, in order to give their stuff away or prefer to use their phones to Freegle, please consider adding them.
Just mail freegledirecthelp@yahoogroups.com with a request to have one or all set up for you, or with any questions you may have about them.

Facebook.

It was discovered that if you don’t publish your page then even providing the url to someone will not find it.
Also some members and mods reported not being able to sign into Direct using the Facebook button. This was found to be a conflict
with the Chrome Avast extension blocking it. You need to disable to extension if you wish to resolve it.

It has been found that your posts can be put on group Facebook page, it you are an admin on it. Just go to settings in Twitter, Profile page, and at the bottom click to your own Facebook account. You are then allowed to link it to one page. The posts then do go on the page and not the account. Only one page seems to be possible to link, as otherwise you are asked to unlink the other one first. If you find a work around please let us know.   

News Letters.

A moderator asked if Edward would like photos for the newsletter. of stuff one of his members makes in the classes she runs from using recycled materials. This was felt to be a good idea. If you have any inventive members or good reuse stories from your groups please forward them to edward @ehibbert.org.uk We are still looking for volunteers to take this job off him. Please contact him if interested.

Snaply

This is now available for Android users. You need to be on Freegle Direct in order for your group to use this app.
Snaply allows members to take a photo, post it to their nearest group and join Freegle all in one go. It is a very useful addition to the tools which are available for our groups.
It is especially good for phone users, or those wishing to put items on which are stored in outside sheds and garages, or maybe when emptying a relatives home, who may not be on the internet.
The iPhone and Android apps both allow logging in with email and password (so you don’t need to use Facebook anymore)
Just go to your group settings page and tick the box to allow your members to use the app. or mail freegledirecthelp@yahoogroups.com  More details can be found here: http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Snaply.
A suggested admin for your members can be found here
http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Snaply_suggested_admin_message

Problems reported.

It was noticed that Admins have not been sent out from Direct lately.
Edward has it in hand and will fix it as soon as he can.
Members posts not showing up was found to be because it contained the word admin, as in badminton on the subject line, the bug was promptly fixed.
Mod tools member sync was broken for a week or two causing members who had left to still receive emails.

Support Group

Email support @ ilovefreegle.org
We do have a support group for moderators and members use, you just need to send them an email.
Mostly for problems or questions with Direct, Facebook, Event stuff or anything else you may want help with, which you don't wish to post on Central.

Think of them as a first line of defence to sift out some of the stuff sent to Edward. They will still be passed on if necessary or will contact other groups for help with your query.
They will
Remove members for you .
Find out more information about a member if required.
Give advice if you are struggling to understand something.
If they don’t know they will find someone who does.

Jean
Freegle Tech.

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